The two films by François Truffaut (1932-1984) that we'll watch
in
Languages 271 focus on moral development of children. How do children
attain, as Itard put it, "the full stature of moral man"? To put it
another way: how
does society make them a part of itself? Truffaut's
interest in this question was enlivened by his own difficult childhood,
which included a stay in a reformatory, desertion from military service,
and time spent in several prisons. In "The Wild Child," Truffaut plays
Dr. Itard, but his heart is with Victor.

Children of the Wild Victor of Aveyron is
only one example of a phenomenon that must, many have thought, shed some
light on what it means to be a human being living in
society, because "wild children" suggest what it is to exist
in the absence of society.